Maeson Wagner, Arts and Technology Editor
@mwagnercourant
This year, the spotlight in music has shifted from the concert choir to “honors” choir groups, notably the Madricals Ensemble and Bella Voce. While the concert choir has not yet had the opportunity to share music this year, these honors ensembles have. They collaborated with NCTV and the orchestra to record “Non Nobis, Domine” by Rosephanye Powell and “Cradle Hymn” by Kim André Arnesen. The special performance was released on January 11 to students and staff.
At the beginning of the school year, choir teacher Sarah Gleason knew it wasn’t possible for all of her students to be singing in person with one another, so she directed her focus towards Bella Voce and the Madricals. “Those groups and I chose songs for them to work on and they did most of the work virtually using Sound Trap, a collaborative music software,” Ms. Gleason said. The Sound Trap platform allowed the singers to hear the other singers voices as they recorded and practiced blending their melodies.
After seeing how hard her students were working on their music, Ms. Gleason wanted to see it come together. Ms. Gleason had a vision for the performance. “We wanted to do something together when it was safe enough,” Ms. Gleason said. “Our dream was not to do individual videos from home like we did for graduation last year.”
Ms. Gleason then contacted NCTV and asked them if they would be willing to film something. Mr. Cebulski and sophomore Emily Fox worked together to produce the project. “The choir students recorded their voice tracks at home and we went into the auditorium one day and recorded their video,” Emily said. “I then produced it and synced it up.”
The song that Bella Voce performed, “Cradle Him” had a unique string quartet melody,so Ms. Gleason asked orchestra teacher, Mr. Ficks, if he would be interested in collaborating. Mr. Ficks then talked to some of his more advanced students, who were happy to participate“We had always talked about collaborating in some way [with the choir]and this seemed like an opportune thing to pursue,” Mr. Ficks said.
This project had a lot of moving parts and faced many obstacles in terms of logistics. However, teamwork between the music department and NCTV allowed students to learn new skills for collaboration in the arts. Noah Dorfsman is one of the string quartet members. “The orchestra, choir, and NCTV are a talented group of kids so the process was able to run very smoothly,” Noah said.
On a Saturday in early December the groups came in intervals and were filmed on the auditorium stage. Ms. Gleason recalls this day as “euphoric” in being able to see her students sing together in person for the first time. “The Saturday we filmed was truly incredible,” Ms. Gleason said. “I watched as students showed their different areas of expertise in film, vocal, and instrumental study.”
